


a Harry/Draco Fic bingo board

by Artichokes



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bingo, M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 03:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12356358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artichokes/pseuds/Artichokes
Summary: Grab a Harry/Draco fic, some bingo tokens, and play along!





	a Harry/Draco Fic bingo board

**Author's Note:**

> I realized how much Harry/Draco fics have their own entire subgenre of common tropes, and I kept thinking about it, and I decided it would be fun to compile some of those tropes into a genuinely usable bingo board. I thought it might be interesting to add an interactive level to my reading experience; and anyway, it was enjoyable to make. I hope you get a kick out of it. I'm including the board as an image, and then listing the tropes in order via text as well.
> 
> If you share this board, please credit back to here, and so on. Suggestions and thoughts are welcome, and comments are very much appreciated! I love discussing this sort of stuff.
> 
> P.S. I present this bingo board with a lot of affection for both this genre of fic and the tropes that it describes. This is definitely not a call-out! Far from it! Tropes are like spices and seasoning -- some combinations are common because they taste so great together; and in general, tropes add fun and flavor to the story.

And here's a direct image link to the full-size bingo board:

https://i.imgur.com/S34cMsc.jpg

 

Below is the full text of the board, along with instructions for assembly, in case the image link isn't working or gets taken down or something:

Entries are numbered to correspond to the bingo squares like so:

01 02 03 04 05  
06 07 08 09 10  
11 12 13 14 15  
16 17 18 19 20  
21 22 23 24 25

And I've tried to arrange the entries so that there are no invalid results. (Aka, ideally no row contains contradictory tropes.)

Here we go:

 

1\. Mention is made of how well Draco's wand suits/suited Harry. (Can even be spun into a whole plot point of its own, but a mere mention is enough to tick off this box.)

2\. Reference to how Harry testified at the Malfoys' judicial hearing about how Narcissa saved his life. It gets Narcissa and Draco a reduced sentence (sometimes it gets a complete pardon). Lucius often gets a harsher sentence, though.

3\. Draco is a skilled Potions master.

4\. Teddy Lupin figures in it somehow.

5\. A non-epilogue-compliant fic where Harry isn't just into guys; he's interested in both men and women. Ginny and Cho were for real. But Draco is for real too.

6\. Sidestepping Draco's truly noxious behavior from the books. Kind of handwaving it out of everyone's collective memory, for the sake of getting straight to the romance with less hassle.

7\. Pansy plays a notable supporting role as Draco's best friend and confidante.

8\. Harry and Draco find themselves as Auror partners, either for reasons that are complicated and leave neither of them pleased (at first), or simply as a matter of fact, in the manner of amiable coworkers who are several years into the daily grind of office routine.

9\. In the process of presenting Draco's point of view, the narrative will demonstrate his familiarity with elegant tokens of high society living. It will point them out by name. You will find yourself craving wine and expensive food after reading this fic.

10\. Harry sees Draco's Sectumsempra scars and feels bad.

11\. Some sort of recall to the handshake scene between Harry and Draco from Book 1, on the Hogwarts Express. (Bonus points if it is reenacted, and this time Harry shakes Draco's hand.)

12\. Lucius Malfoy is either under house arrest, in Azkaban, or dead.

13\. The phrase "We were literally children, for Christ's sake" appears in some shape or form when discussing the teenage behavior (aka, the pureblood ideology, loyalty to Voldemort, general awfulness, etc.) of Draco and/or the other Slytherins.

14\. Draco Is Fashionable. Harry Is Not. (But Draco thinks Harry looks very fit, despite his lack of fashion sense.)

15\. A non-epilogue-compliant fic that contains wry reference to how Draco is very gay, and thus he is extinguishing the Malfoy line for good.

16\. Harry's "thing for stalking Draco" (from Book 6) is brought up again. Conveniently enough, Harry pursues or stalks Draco in some minor capacity as a recall of this behavior. Yet another way to bring the two enemies together and put them on the path towards romance.

17\. Malfoy Mansion and/or assets have been seized by the Ministry, in some shape or form, as compensation for war crimes/damages.

18\. Hermione and Draco have become friends in a professional capacity, likely due to working in similar fields and respecting each other's professionalism. (This counts if they're both apprentices or grad students or whatever as well.)

19\. Epilogue-compliant, but at least one of them is a divorcee or widower. Sometimes both of them.

20\. Draco and Luna are friendly, and possibly in semi-frequent contact with each other. (Maybe they meet for tea; maybe they write letters... It varies a lot!)

21\. It's an Eighth Year Of Hogwarts fic, and all the Eighth Years have to share a common room and/or dorms. Consequently, this gives the story a good reason to throw Harry and Draco together a lot.

22\. Draco bottoms at least once in the fic.

23\. Lubricating Charms. (Bonus points for a wandless Lubricating Charm.)

24\. Draco and Harry bump into each other in the Muggle world, to their mutual surprise.

25\. Slytherin and/or Gryffindor colors get mentioned at some point. (Possibly one of them teases the other about sticking to the color preferences in their day-to-day life.)

**Author's Note:**

> For me, one of the most enjoyable parts of reading any genre that comes with a pile of stock tropes is seeing how people will interpret and play with a trope, or how they'll manage to avoid it or subvert it completely. I get especially interested in how it ends up flavoring the story. 
> 
> For example: so many Harry/Draco fics take it for granted that Lucius is out of the picture, somehow. And I think that make sense. There's a reason it's a common trope. But I can think of one impressive fanfic novel where Lucius is not only very much IN the picture, but he's also back on the Wizengamot, and a prominent mover-and-shaker, and he's definitely not doing it for the side of good... There's something kind of dreadful yet delicious in how accurate that feels to real life. Lucius graduates from murderous villain to corrupt politician, and is much trickier to deal with as a result. 
> 
> On the other hand, I can think of a different fic where the absence of Pansy really stood out, and made me realize how comfortably reliable and enjoyable she is a presence. And then, when this fic finally brought up Pansy, it turned out Draco and Pansy had a falling out, because Draco had moved on from the pureblood ideology, and Pansy hadn't. And that was so surprising, and felt like this twist on how things usually go -- and of course, it gave the story a different shape, too. It said things about the world that this particular fanfic was describing.
> 
> And of course, there are the tropes that feel mutually exclusive. Some are obvious, like Epilogue-Compliant tropes vs EWE tropes. But on the other hand, a trope like "sidestepping Draco's truly noxious behavior from the books" rarely mixes with, say, "We were literally children". I think this is because the latter often appears when the fic is trying to acknowledge and deal with Draco's teenage behavior. These are the fics that refuse to forget Draco's racism, cruelty, or extraordinary callousness towards others. (Could Draco ever step into The Three Broomsticks again, for example, without Madam Rosmerta remembering how he stripped her of her free will and tried to make her complicit in attempts at murder?) Different authors approach the dilemma in various ways, and with shifting degrees of forgiveness. 
> 
> But there are also fics which, I think, wish Draco was simply never this type of bad person to start with, that things could be better for everyone -- and they make it so, with their fic. They give Harry and Draco a relationship with no bad blood, by largely erasing or dampening the effects of the past. I think the impulse that generates this sort of fic is fundamentally a kindly one.
> 
> Perhaps I am personally more fascinated with the "We were literally children" fics, because I enjoy seeing all the different strategies that authors will employ for dealing with the genuine obstacles that stand between a friendship (and romance) of two enemies with such a bitter past. It's always a bit of a high-wire act to pull it off convincingly, and I enjoy seeing it done well. At its best, it's kind of like... like fanfic virtuoso performance, to my mind. And it's the sort of trope execution that I like the most: where seeing HOW a trope is carried out is much more compelling than just the presence of the trope itself.
> 
> So I hope this bingo board isn't just fun to play, but is also (so to speak) fun to take apart. It's interesting to realize why certain tropes work so very well, and why some rarely co-mingle; and it's also interesting to think about why we see all these tropes in so much delicious variation. Plus, I always love realizing when a story is doing something unexpected with the trope tradition. I enjoy going along for the ride, and seeing what sort of territory will be explored along the way.


End file.
